The present invention relates to medical imaging and tissue sampling (biopsy), more particularly sampling mammary tissue.
A radiographic device, used for mammography, for example, includes an X-ray tube for forming and a collimator for delimiting a beam of X-rays, a radiological image receiver, and a positioner carrying the combination of the X-ray tube and the image receiver, the combination being movable about one or more axes. A radiographic apparatus for mammographic use is disclosed in EP-A-972 490.
Conventionally, to detect breast cancer, radiographic images are obtained and analyzed to deduce the probability of the presence of a malignant lesion in particular areas. If a suspect area is detected, a practitioner performs one or more biopsies to obtain tissue for histological analysis. If the lesion is visible on a radiographic image, the radiographic image guides a sampling member which performs the biopsy.
A disadvantage of using a radiographic image to guide a biopsy is that conventional radiographic images can detect only lesions accompanied by microcalcification or opacity of sufficient magnitude to be detected in a radiographic image. However, there are lesions that do not form microcalcification or opacity of sufficient magnitude to be detected and made the subject of a biopsy.
Furthermore, the presence of microcalcification in highly localized areas within the lesion does not enable the size and the shape of the lesion to be determined, for example, to consider surgical intervention. Microcalcification cannot indicate with a high level of confidence whether the lesion is malignant or not.